The Gershwin Brothers: Ira and George. American Composers. Part 5 | Marvin Hamlisch The Gershwin Brothers: Ira and George. American Composers. Part 5 May 1, 2014 “I want to use the piano as a stepping stone!” – George Gerswhin. “A song without music is a lot like H2 without the O” – Ira Gershwin George Gershwin wrote most of his vocal and theatrical works, including more than a dozen Broadway shows and several films in collaboration with his elder brother, lyricist Ira Gershwin. George’s musical compositions have been used in numerous films and on television, and many became jazz standards recorded in numerous variations. Countless singers and musicians have recorded their songs. Marvin says that he can put his finger on some elements that contributed to George Gershwin’s musical personality, but genius remains a mystery: George Gershwin “I think he came at a time when the whole jazz world was really popping with a lot of great composers. He was able to do “a fusion,” mixing a song-plugging style with symphonic composition and blending jazz rhythms into the classics.

He had this uncanny ability to fuse the things he knew were part and parcel of of the age with a kind of classical knowledge. I think Gershwin was this kind of dynamo; when I look at how much he did, how much he wrote, it boggles the mind how he did it. The difference is he wrote whether he was hired to or not. Most composers write because they’re hired to write. He just kept going. He was a force of nature, I think the analogy to Mozart is the closest you can get – the unbelievable passion to keep writing. One of the reasons I do Pops concerts is because of George Gershwin. Right after ‘A Chorus Line,’ an agent said, ‘I think you should do symphonic concerts with your music.’ I didn’t know. Then he told me Gershwin did them. I thought, if it’s good enough for Gershwin, it’s good enough for me – Marvin Hamlisch FASCINATING RHYTHM – Sung by Mel Torme’: Ira was born Israel Gershowitz in New York City in 1896 and George was born in Brooklyn in 1898.

Their father Morris (Moishe) and Mother Rose were from Odessa, Ukraine of Jewish descent. Their last Name Gershowitz was changed to Gershvin well before they rose to fame (it was not spelled “Gershwin” until later). By 1916 George began composing and “plugging” in Tin Pan Alley . (Song pluggers” were pianists and singers who made their living demonstrating songs to promote sales of sheet music. Most music stores had song pluggers on staff. Other pluggers were employed by the publishers to travel and familiarize the public with their new publications. Among the ranks of song pluggers was George Gershwin) By 1921 Ira became involved in the music business. Alex Aarons signed Ira to write the music for his next show, Two Little Girls in Blue (written under the pseudonym “Arthur Francis”), ultimately produced by Abraham Erlanger, with co-composers Vincent Youmans and Paul Lannin.

Gershwin’s lyrics were well received, and allowed him to successfully enter the theatre world with just one show Ira Gershwin (with Jerome Kern) It was not until 1924 that Ira and George Gershwin teamed up to write the music for their first Broadway hit Lady, Be Good!. Once the brothers joined together, their combined talents became one of the most influential forces in the history of American Musical Theatre. “When the Gershwins teamed up to write songs for Lady, Be Good, the American musical found its native idiom” (Philip Furia) LISTEN – Summertime – By Janis Joplin . “ Summertime ” is an aria composed by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. The lyrics are by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin.

The song soon became a popular and much recorded jazz standard, described as “without doubt… one of the finest songs the composer ever wrote….Gershwin’s highly evocative writing brilliantly mixes elements of jazz and the song styles of African-Americans in the southeast United States from the early twentieth century.” George moved to Paris in an attempt to study with Nadia Boulanger , where he began to compose An American in Paris . After returning to New York City, he wrote Porgy and Bess with Ira and author DuBose Heyward . Initially a commercial failure, Porgy and Bess is now considered one of the most important American operas of the Twentieth Century. READ – George and Ira Gershwin – Body of Work Together, George and Ira Gershwin wrote the music for many shows and films. Some of their more famous works include “The Man I Love” , “Fascinating Rhythm”, “Someone to Watch Over Me” , “I Got Rhythm” , and “They Can’t Take That Away from Me”.

In 1931, the brothers collaborated on the score for the Broadway show, “ Of Thee I Sing ,” which became the first musical to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. George Gershwin moved to Hollywood and composed numerous film scores. George Gershwin George and Ira’s partnership continued until George’s sudden death from a brain tumor in 1937 at the age of 38. LISTEN – Arnold Schoenberg speaks about George Gershwin: IRA GERSHWIN: Ira Gershwin READ – Lyrics by Ira Gershwin – Titles Ira Gershwin was a joyous listener to the sounds of the modern world.

“He had a sharp eye and ear for the minutiae of living.” He noted in a diary: “Heard in a day: An elevator’s purr, telephone’s ring, telephone’s buzz, a baby’s moans, a shout of delight, a screech from a ‘flat wheel’, hoarse honks, a hoarse voice, a tinkle, a match scratch on sandpaper, a deep resounding boom of dynamiting in the impending subway, iron hooks on the gutter.” There was a full house in December 1996 when a gala concert was held at Carnegie Hall to celebrate the centennial of Ira’s birth. There was also an all-star cast in the British tribute at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Song: My Ship – Sung by Julie Andrews : “ My Ship ” is a popular song written for the 1941 Broadway musical Lady in the Dark, with music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Ira Gershwin. GEORGE GERSWHIN: “America’s musical debt to George Gershwin remains immeasurable 74 years after his death.

You could count up all the great songs and musicals and add the concert pieces, such as “ Rhapsody in Blue ,” and still not have the measure of the man. George Gershwin The synthesis he achieved with different musical styles – all with his immediately recognizable personality – remains unequaled to this day. Yet, beyond even this, he inspires a rare degree of affection for the vibrant personality he was – all too briefly because he was 38 when he died – and the example he set personally as well as professionally. Gershwin most certainly has confounded experts for years. His “ Porgy and Bess ,” unsuccessful in its first performances, is now regarded as a landmark achievement in 20th century opera. “ American in Paris ,” Gershwin’s ode to the City of Lights, demonstrated Gershwin’s casual elegance on the piano and provided a teasing rhythmic core not often seen in classical renditions.” –Mark Kanny, Classical Music Critic. In 2007, the Library of Congress named its Prize for Popular Song after Ira and his brother George.

Recognizing the profound and positive effect of popular music on the world’s culture, the prize will be given annually to a composer or performer whose lifetime contributions exemplify the standard of excellence associated with the Gershwins. RECIPIENTS: George Gershwin - Biography - IMDb George Gershwin Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (1) | Trivia (21) | Personal Quotes (19) Overview (4) 5' 10½" (1.79 m) Mini Bio (1) He was born Jacob Gershowitz, 26 September 1898, in Brooklyn, New York, of Russian-Jewish immigrants. As a boy he could play popular and classical works on his brother Ira's piano by ear. In 1913 he quit school to study music and began composing for Tin Pan Alley; by 1919 he had his first hit "Swanee" and his first Broadway show "La, La, Lucille." In less than three weeks in 1924 he composed "Rhapsody in Blue," originally for Paul Whiteman's relatively small swing band and later orchestrated by Ferde Grofé.

"Concerto in F" followed the next year, and his musical success "Oh, Kay!" (which included "Someone to Watch Over Me") the year after that. Success continued: "Funny Face" (1927), the tone poem "American in Paris" (1928), "Girl Crazy" (1929), "Of Thee I Sing" (1931 the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize), and the first true American opera: "Porgy and Bess" (1935). He moved to Hollywood were his songs were performed by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. In 1937 he fell in love with Paulette Goddard, then married to Charlie Chaplin. He was heartbroken that she would not leave her husband for him. When he fell ill, that June, it was written off as stress. A month later he died of a brain tumor, five hours after a failed surgical attempt to remove it. Funerals were hold in both Hollywood and New York. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu> Trivia (21) Younger brother of lyricist Ira Gershwin .

Pictured on an 8¢ US commemorative postage stamp in the American Arts series, issued 28 February 1973. His "Porgy and Bess" was the first American opera ever performed at La Scala Opera House, in Milan, Italy. His "Rhapsody in Blue" was hugely successful at its premiere, coming at the end of a reportedly extremely dull concert. He was the first composer to successfully use jazz elements in works written for the concert hall. His "Porgy and Bess" was the first nearly all-black opera to be performed in the Soviet Union. His "Porgy and Bess", is still, as of 2003, the most beloved American opera ever written, and the most famous, despite what dissenting critics have said about it over the years.

The first two truly complete recordings of Gershwin's opera "Porgy and Bess" won back-to-back Grammy Awards for Best Opera Recording--in 1976 (for Decca/London's studio recording conducted by Lorin Maazel) and in 1977 (for RCA Victor's recording of the critically acclaimed and highly successful Houston Opera stage production, in which the opera was restored to completeness after playing onstage in a slightly abridged version). The 1989 complete recording, however, often praised as the best so far, did not win a Grammy. He is considered by some to be the greatest American composer of the twentieth century. Although Gershwin completed only four songs for his score for the film The Goldwyn Follies (1938) at the time of his premature death, three of them are considered among his best, "Love Walked In," "Love Is Here to Stay," and "I Was Doing Alright". Vernon Duke completed the songs for the film, which was neither a critical or popular success. His satirical musical, "Of Thee I Sing", which lampooned the U.S.

Presidency, the Vice Presidency, and the entire impeachment process, was never filmed by Hollywood because it was considered too much of a political hot potato. It was, however, produced as a television special in a very toned-down and altered version, in 1972. Some of his stage musicals, such as "Oh, Kay!" and "Tip-Toes", were made into silent pictures ( Oh Kay! (1928), Tiptoes (1927)), but never re-made in the sound era. "Tip-Toes" was staged on television as a Christmas season episode of the British anthology The Jazz Age (1968) in 1968. Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. Portrayed by Robert Alda in the somewhat fictionalized biopic Rhapsody in Blue (1945). Was allergic to champagne. He and his brother Ira Gershwin were awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 7083 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California. Won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the musical "Of Thee I Sing" collaborating with George S.

Kaufman , Morrie Ryskind , and Ira Gershwin . The Hollywood house that he lived in was later owned by José Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney . Ira Gershwin and his musical, "Porgy and Bess", at the Court Theatre in Chicago, Illinois was nominated for the 2011 Equity Joseph Jefferson Award for Musical Production (Large). Gershwin was only 25-years-old when he composed his enduring masterpiece "Rhapsody in Blue" (1924). Personal Quotes (19) Why should I limit myself to only one woman when I can have as many women as I want? Life is a lot like jazz. It's best when you improvise. True music must repeat the thoughts and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans and my time is today. [after completing "Porgy and Bess"] I think the music is so marvelous, I don't believe I wrote it. [to George Kaufman, who had expressed severe reservations about 'Of Thee I Sing'] George, you don't like to be sentimental. You hate love, and so forth.

But the people believe that the President of the United states, even though he's going to be impeached, is not going to give up the girl he loves. [on Jerome Kern, 1916] He was the first composer who made me conscious that popular music was of inferior quality, and that musical-comedy music was made of better material. I followed Kern's work and studied each song that he composed. I paid him the tribute of frank imitation, and many things I wrote at that time sounded as though he had written them himself. American popular music, since its origin, has been steadily gaining in originality. Today it may truly lay claim to being the most vital of contemporary music. Unfortunately however, most songs die at an early age and are soon completely forgotten by the selfsame public that once sang them with great gusto. The reason for this is that they are sung and played too much when they are alive, and cannot stand the strain of their very popularity. This is especially true since the invention of the phonograph, and moreso since the widespread conquest of the radio. Sheet music, as ordinarily printed for mass sales, is arranged with an eye for simplicity.

The publishers cannot be blamed for getting out simplified versions of songs, since the majority of the purchasers of popular music are little girls with little hands, who have not progressed very far in their study of the piano. To play American popular music most effectively, one must guard against the natural tendency to make too frequent use of the sustaining pedal. Our study of the great romantic composers has trained us in the method of the legato, whereas our popular music asks for staccato effects, for almost a stencilled style. The rhythms of American popular music are more or less brittle; they should be made to snap, and at times to crackle. The more sharply the music is played, the more effective it sounds. Not many composers have ideas. Far more of them know how to use strange instruments which do not require ideas. Composing at the piano is not a good practice, But I started that way and it has become a habit..The actual composition must be done in the brain. In composing, we combine what we know of music with what we feel. I see a piece of music in the form of a design. With a melody, one can take in the whole design in one look.

With a larger composition, like a concerto, it is necessary to take it piece by piece and then construct it so much longer. [on composing 'Rhapsody in Blue'] There had been so much chatter about the limitations of jazz, not to speak of the manifest misunderstandings of its function. Jazz, they said, had to be in strict time. It had to cling to dance rhythms. I resolved, if possible, to kill that misconception with one sturdy blow. Inspired by this aim, I set to work composing with unwonted rapidity. No set plan was in my mind - no structure to which my music would conform. The rhapsody, as you see, began as a purpose, not a plan.. I tried to conceive the composition as a whole. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America - of our vast melting-pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness. [on his mother] She's what the mammy writers write about, and what the mammy singers sing about.

But they don't mean it, and I do Because 'Porgy and Bess' deals with Negro life in America, it brings to the operatic form elements that have never before appeared in opera, and I have adapted my method to utilize the drama, the humor, the superstition, the religious fervor, the dancing and the irrepressible high spirits of the race. If, in doing this, I have created a new form which combines opera with theater, this new form has come quite naturally out of the material. 'Porgy and Bess' is a folk tale. Its people naturally would sing folk music. When I first began work on the music I decided against the use of original folk material because I wanted the music to be all of one piece. Therefore I wrote my own spirituals and folk songs. But they are still folk music - and therefore, being in operatic form, 'Porgy and Bess' becomes an opera. [on 'Porgy and Bess'] Though of course I will try to keep my own style moving in the opera, the Negro flavor will be predominant throughout. I'd like to point out that Negro music is the prototype of jazz.

All modern jazz is built up on the rhythms and melodic turns and twists which came directly from Africa. Even the rumba. The European boys have small ideas but they sure know how to dress 'em up. [on 'An American in Paris'] This new piece, really a rhapsodic ballet, is written very freely and is the most modern music I've yet attempted. My purpose here is to portray the impressions of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city, listens to the various street noises, and absorbs the French atmosphere. As in my other orchestral compositions, I've not endeavored to present any definite scenes. The rhapsody is programmatic only in a general impressionistic way, so that the individual listener can read into the music such episodes as his imagination pictures for him. See also George Gershwin George Gershwin Died; Hollywood, California, 11 July 1937 George Gershwin was born Jacob Gershowitz. His parents emigrated from Russia to the U.S.A in 1891. He first discovered music at age 10 at a friend's violin recital in a school auditorium in the lower East Side of Manhattan.

Georges early interests were not in music, but sports. When a piano was brought into the Gershowitz home for brother Ira, George (age 12) was the one whose interest was sparked. After playing from memory a song he had heard on a neighbor's player piano, Georges parents invested in lessons. By age 15 Gershwin had quit school and landed a job as pianist and "song plugger" for a Tin Pan Alley music-publishing firm, Jerome H. Remick & Company, at a salary of $15 a week. To increase his income, Gershwin recorded piano rolls under various pen names. For his efforts he received $35 for six rolls. He was interested in both serious and popular music, and composed in both styles. He was one of the first composers to combine jazz and classical music styles. George was a great admirer of the comedian Ed Wynn and it is at this time, in honor of him, that Gershwin changed the end of his last name. He studied with the American composers Rubin Goldmark, Henry Cowell, and Wallingford Riegger and with the Russian-born composer and theorist Joseph Schillinger.

Gershwin wrote his first major successful musical work in 1924, Rhapsody in Blue. Asked by Paul Whiteman to write the work for a special concert of modern music to be presented at Aeolian Hall in New York, Gershwin finished his composition in less than three weeks. The speed of writing was due in part to George having forgotten about the commission. It was when Ira read in the newspaper of the upcoming concert that Georges remembered his musical commitment. Much of his inspiration for the work came during a train ride to Boston. According to Gershwin, "with its steely rhythms, its rattlety-bang . . . I suddenly heard - and even saw on paper - the complete construction of the rhapsody from beginning to end. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America - of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness." The score was completed in a week upon his return to New York. The original setting was not for a large orchestra, but for a much smaller jazz ensemble. Gershwin himself performed at the piano at the world premiere.

The American composer Ferde Grofé, then a pianist and orchestrator for Paul Whiteman's Orchestra orchestrated Rhapsody in Blue. The success of Rhapsody in Blue led Gershwin to write more pieces for piano and orchestra including the Concerto in F, commissioned by famed conductor, Walter Damrosch. Gershwin followed this brilliant success with his 1928 tone poem An American in Paris, which takes the listener to the streets of Paris in the 1920s and calls for four traffic car horns in concert. To add authentic color to this work Gershwin visited Parisian garages and purchased used taxi horns that he incorporated into the score. Although he composed sketches of the work in Paris, it was completed on a farm in Connecticut. The piece premiered at Carnegie Hall December 13, 1928 and almost immediately transferred from the concert hall to the musical stage as it was incorporated into Show Girl as the ballet scene. Gershwin had traveled to Paris in the hopes of studying with famed teacher Nadia Boulanger, but she refused him saying he was fine the way he was. Gershwin also sought to study with Igor Stravinsky.

When he approached the composer at a party Stravinsky surprised him with the question "How much money do you make a year?" Upon hearing the answer Stravinsky replied, "Perhaps I should study with you, Mr. Gershwin." The lyrics for nearly all of George Gershwins songs were written by his older brother, Ira. The song "Swanee," introduced by Al Jolson in Sinbad, became the greatest hit of Gershwins entire career. George and Ira followed this success with a constant flow of bright, up-tempo tunes and heartfelt ballads to became the dominant Broadway songwriters of the 1920s. This extraordinary collaboration led to a succession of 22 musical comedies. The Gershwin brothers musical Of Thee I Sing was the first musical to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize. George & Ira Gershwins greatest musical undertaking, Porgy and Bess, which was the first American opera, met with very little success when it initially opened. It was set in the south and dealt with the poor of the ghettos and their daily lives.

Gershwin, fascinated by the DuBose Heyward novel Porgy, recognised it as a perfect vehicle for opera using jazz and blues rhythms and idioms. What he called a "folk opera," Porgy and Bess (co-written with DuBose and Dorothy Heyward and Ira Gershwin) was the Gershwin brothers most ambitious endeavor - the songs, orchestrations and drama all being of equal importance. Porgy and Bess was premiered on September 30, 1935 in Boston, and opened on Broadway on October 10. In addition to its 1942 and 1953 revivals and subsequent world tours, it was made into a major motion picture in 1959. Cuban Overture (first titled Rumba) was George Gershwin's last attempt at a major serious orchestral success. He vacationed in Havana in 1932 and became very interested in the Cuban music, particularly the percussion. Gershwin always ahead of his time, premiered his overture well ahead of Xavier Cugat, who popularized music with Cuban rhythms.

Over the years, Gershwin songs have also been used in numerous films and musicals, including My One and Only (1983) and Crazy For You (1992). Crazy For You is loosely based on Girl Crazy, with a new libretto by Ken Ludwig and features several George and Ira songs, including two previously unpublished numbers. Gershwins music has been featured in movies such as When Harry Met Sally and Mr. Holland's Opus, and in the opening of the 1988 Olympics. George Gershwin rarely made grand statements about his music. He described himself as a "modern romantic" and was quoted as saying, "true music must reflect the thought and aspirations of the people and time. My people are Americans. My time is today." Famous Works by George Gershwin include: For Piano & Orchestra: Rhapsody in Blue, Piano Concerto in F, An American in Paris For Orchestra: Cuban Overture Opera: Blue Monday Blues, Porgy and Bess, including It Aint Necessarily So, I Got Plenty o' Nuttin, Bess You Is My Woman Now and Summertime.

Instrumental Solos: Three Preludes, Rialto Ripples Popular Songs: The Man I Love, Lady Be Good, Nice Work If You Can Get It, Someone To Watch Over Me, Fascinating Rhythm, I Got Rhythm, S'Wonderful, Swanee, Our Love Is Here To Stay, The Man I Love, Embraceable You, A Foggy Day Musicals: La La Lucille, Broadway Brevities of 1920, Lady, be Good!. Oh Kay! Strike up the Band, Funny Face, Girl Crazy; Of Thee I Sing George George Gershwin | About the Composer | American Masters | PBS About the Composer Comments George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn in 1898, the second of four children from a close-knit immigrant family. He began his musical career as a song-plugger on Tin Pan Alley , but was soon writing his own pieces. Gershwin’s first published song, “When You Want ‘Em, You Can’t Get ‘Em,” demonstrated innovative new techniques, but only earned him five dollars. Soon after, however, he met a young lyricist named Irving Ceaser.

Together they composed a number of songs including “Swanee,” which sold more than a million copies. In the same year as “Swanee,” Gershwin collaborated with Arthur L. Jackson and Buddy De Sylva on his first complete Broadway musical, “La, La Lucille”. Over the course of the next four years, Gershwin wrote forty-five songs; among them were “Somebody Loves Me” and “Stairway to Paradise,” as well as a twenty-five-minute opera, “Blue Monday.” Composed in five days, the piece contained many musical clichés, but it also offered hints of developments to come. In 1924, George collaborated with his brother, lyricist Ira Gershwin, on a musical comedy “Lady Be Good”. It included such standards as “Fascinating Rhythm” and “The Man I Love.” It was the beginning of a partnership that would continue for the rest of the composer’s life. Together they wrote many more successful musicals including “Oh Kay!” and “Funny Face”, staring Fred Astaire and his sister Adele.

While continuing to compose popular music for the stage, Gershwin began to lead a double life, trying to make his mark as a serious composer. When he was 25 years old, his jazz-influenced “Rhapsody in Blue” premiered in New York’s Aeolian Hall at the concert, “An Experiment in Music.” The audience included Jascha Heifetz , Fritz Kreisler, Leopold Stokowski, Serge Rachmaninov, and Igor Stravinsky. Gershwin followed this success with his orchestral work “Piano Concerto in F, Rhapsody No. 2” and “An American in Paris”. Serious music critics were often at a loss as to where to place Gershwin’s classical music in the standard repertoire. Some dismissed his work as banal and tiresome, but it always found favor with the general public. In the early thirties, Gershwin experimented with some new ideas in Broadway musicals. “Strike Up The Band”, “Let ‘Em Eat Cake”, and “Of Thee I Sing”, were innovative works dealing with social issues of the time. “Of Thee I Sing” was a major hit and the first comedy ever to win the Pulitzer Prize.

In 1935 he presented a folk opera “Porgy and Bess” in Boston with only moderate success. Now recognized as one of the seminal works of American opera, it included such memorable songs as “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” “I Loves You, Porgy,” and “Summertime.” In 1937, after many successes on Broadway, the brothers decided go to Hollywood. Again they teamed up with Fred Astaire, who was now paired with Ginger Rogers. They made the musical film, “Shall We Dance”, which included such hits as “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” and “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” Soon after came “A Damsel in Distress”, in which Astaire appeared with Joan Fontaine. After becoming ill while working on a film, he had plans to return to New York to work on writing serious music. He planned a string quartet, a ballet and another opera, but these pieces were never written. At the age of 38, he died of a brain tumor. Today he remains one of America’s most beloved popular musicians. What did you think?

A Salute to George Gershwin A Salute to George Gershwin An American Icon of the Jazz Age In 1928, with his fame rising steadily, Gershwin and his brother Ira went to Europe and settled in Paris at the Hôtel Majestic. Gershwin’s suite served as headquarters, studio (he was working on An American in Paris) and concert hall. He sought out the luminaries of the musical world who, he discovered, were admirers: Igor Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel, Serge Prokofiev, Kurt Weill, Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg. Berg, in Vienna, made the biggest impression. Gershwin studied Berg’s scores and returned to New York with an autographed photo, which he hung on his wall next to Jack Dempsey’s. Gershwin had little left to learn, according to Alex Ross in The Rest Is Noise, though he continued to study. Adept at whole-tone, diatonic, blues, chromatic and other scales, and a master of rhythmic schemes, he was ready to work on a larger scale. Porgy and Bess, his most ambitious work, was already taking shape.

(more ...) The Providence Singers Artistic Director Andrew Clark, Conductor Patrice Newman, Piano 8 p.m. Thursday, March 27, 2008 The Stadium Theatre, Woonsocket 8 p.m. Friday, March 28, 2008 Sayles Hall, Brown University 8 p.m. Saturday, March 29, 2008 George Kent Performance Hall, Westerly 3 p.m.

Sunday, March 30, 2008 The Pennfield School, Portsmouth Music from Tin Pan Alley, Broadway Stage and Hollywood Films “Swanee” (1918, added to Al Jolson’s show Sinbad in 1919) – Male Quartet and Chorus “Nobody But You” (1919, from La La Lucille, his first complete Broadway show) – Chorus “Bidin’ My Time” (1930, from Girl Crazy) – Male Quartet “Fascinating Rhythm” (1924, from Lady Be Good, his first Broadway success) – Chorus “Isn’t it a Pity” (1933, from Pardon My English) – Mezzo-Soprano or Contralto “Liza” (1929, from Show Girl) – Men of the Chorus “Someone to Watch Over Me” (1926, from Oh Kay!,) – Women of the Chorus “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” (1937, from the motion picture Shall We Dance) – Chorus Prelude No.

2 – Piano Solo Music from Tin Pan Alley, Broadway Stage and Hollywood Films “Rose of Madrid” (from George White Scandals of 1922) – Tenor A Gershwin Medley (arranged by Robert Page) “How Long Has This Been Going On?” (1928, from Rosalie) – Chorus “Somebody Loves Me” (from George White Scandals of 1922) – Chorus “Mine” (1933, from Let Them Eat Cake) – Chorus “A Foggy Day” (1937, from the motion picture A Damsel in Distress) – Mezzo-Soprano “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise” (from George White Scandals of 1922) – Chorus “I Got Rhythm” (1930, from Girl Crazy) – Mezzo-Soprano, Quartet, Chorus Selections from the folk opera Porgy and Bess (1935), sung from the original score “Summertime” – Soprano and Chorus Women “It Ain’t Necessarily So” – Tenor and Chorus “Gone, Gone, Gone

 / Overflow” – Soprano and Chorus “My Man’s Gone” – Mezzo-Soprano and Chorus “Headin’ for the Promised Land” – Soprano and Chorus “I Got Plenty o’ Nothin’” – Bass and Chorus “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” – Bass and Soprano “A Woman Is a Sometime Thing” – Bass and Chorus “O Lawd, I’m on My Way” – Chorus More about George Gershwin We highly recommend two recent books: Wilfrid Sheed, The House That George Built (New York: Random House; 2007); Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 2007).

George Gershwin was born Jacob Gershowitz (later Gershvin) in Brooklyn September 26, 1898. His Russian-Jewish parents, Moishe and Rosa Gershowitz, had immigrated from St. Petersburg in 1891 and married in New York. They were not musical people, but they raised their family (Ira, George, Arthur and Frances) on the Lower East Side in a rich multiracial stew of immigrant cultures. George heard his first live jazz when he was six and began formal study of the piano at age 12. (The Gershwins originally bought their piano for George’s older brother Ira.) His early teachers were musical émigrés who introduced him to the music of Debussy and Ravel and some of the musical ideas of Arnold Schoenberg. George loved music. He attended as many concerts and recitals as he could and encountered everything from art music to jazz and the blues. In his mid-teens, he signed on as a “song plugger” for a sheet music publisher, playing piano reductions to sell music to customers. He met Fred Astaire, among many others, and soon began to attract the attention of Broadway producers.

While continuing his piano, theory and orchestration studies, he found work as a rehearsal pianist and accompanist and recorded about 140 piano rolls, many of them under assumed names, many of them now available on the Internet. Gershwin wrote his first published song – “When You Want ’Em, You Can’t Get ’Em” – in 1916. It was not a commercial success, but he was a prolific composer, and other songs of his soon found their way onto Broadway. He wrote “Swanee” in 1918 and played it for Al Jolson, who loved it, added it to his show Sinbad in 1919, and gave Gershwin his first blockbuster hit. Gershwin’s first complete Broadway show – La, La, Lucille – also came in 1919, and his meteoric rise to fame began. Lady Be Good! (1924), his first Broadway success, was also the first full-scale collaboration with his lyricist brother Ira.

(Because George was already a well-known rising star on Broadway, Ira wrote lyrics under the penname Arthur Frances in the early years, using the names of his younger brother and sister.) George wrote dozens of songs for the annual George White’s Scandals on Broadway from 1920 to 1924, and wrote the entire show for 1920. His work attracted the interest of bandleader Paul Whiteman, who conducted the Scandals. Whiteman was working on a concert project titled “An Experiment in Modern Music” and commissioned Gershwin to write a symphonic work. Gershwin produced his best-known piano work, Rhapsody in Blue, which was orchestrated by Whiteman’s arranger, Ferde Grofé – first for its première with jazz orchestra and later for full orchestra. The audience – including Leopold Stowkowski, Jascha Heifetz, Sergei Rachmaninoff and other musical luminaries – roared its approval at the première February 12, 1924. In July 1925, at the age of 26, George Gershwin made the cover of TIME.

In 1928, with his fame rising steadily, Gershwin took a trip to London, Paris and Vienna with Ira, Ira’s wife Leonore Strunsky, and their sister Frances. They settled in Paris at the Hôtel Majestic. Gershwin’s suite served as headquarters, concert hall and studio. (He was working on An American in Paris and visited French auto parts stores with the composer Alexander Tansman, shopping for taxi horns.) He sought out the luminaries of the musical world who, he was surprised to discover, were admirers: Igor Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel, Serge Prokofiev, Kurt Weill, Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg. Berg, in Vienna, made the biggest impression, offering new ideas and new musical areas to explore. Gershwin studied Berg’s scores and returned to New York with an autographed photo, a prize he hung on his wall next to Jack Dempsey’s. Gershwin had little left to learn, according to Alex Ross in The Rest Is Noise, though he continued to study.

Adept at whole-tone, diatonic, blues, chromatic and other scales, and a master of rhythmic schemes, he was ready to work on a larger scale. Porgy and Bess, his biggest and most ambitious work, was already taking shape. Back in the States for the 1930s, Gershwin and his brother Ira secured their place as one of most famous song-writing teams on Broadway. Their political satire, Of Thee I Sing, was the first Broadway show to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama. (There was no Pulitzer for music in 1931, so the prize went to Ira and two other writers. In 1998, his birth centennial, George received a posthumous Pulitzer for lifetime achievement, accepted by his sister Frances.) Their songs began to appear in motion pictures, including the 1937 films Shall We Dance and A Damsel in Distress, and their West Coast residence became a significant social and musical center, including weekly tennis matches with Arnold Schoenberg. But it was the folk opera Porgy and Bess (1935) that would become Gershwin’s signature work.

Gershwin had found the story in DuBose Heyward’s 1924 novel, Porgy, and immediately saw its potential as an opera. He traveled to South Carolina and lived for two months among the Gullah People – Porgy’s people – then spent 20 months composing the score, with Ira working on the libretto. The work received a modest reception, possibly because audiences could not decide what it was (too profound for Broadway, too popular for the Met). Gershwin himself, however, was very proud of Porgy and Bess. “I think the music is so marvelous,” he said, “I don’t believe I wrote it.” Early in 1937, Gershwin experienced neurological symptoms – excruciating headaches and the sense he was smelling burnt rubber – of the brain tumor that would take his life that July. The loss of such a talent, particularly as he was turning to more ambitious projects, left the musical world wondering what Gershwin might have achieved. Wilfrid Sheed puts it this way: “Gershwin is first and last a songwriter – which doesn’t mean we have to throw a drop cloth over his classical work.

The two sides of George were exquisitely mixed and played into each other constantly. But classically minded writers on the subject have tended to assume that their kind of music in some sense ‘won’ because they consider it better music and more worthy of George’s ambitions, but this was never true. Every great concert work of his would be followed by a volley of new and better songs, clearly based on the same inspirations that gave him the longer work. ... “Guesses as to what he would have done had he lived longer outnumber our conjectures about Jack Kennedy ... but what Gershwin did do was write songs, right up to the final day, when half of his brain was occupied with a tumor.” — Wilfrid Sheed, The House that George Built The Providence Singers Inc.

| 667 Waterman Avenue | East Providence RI 02914 The Carter Center | Studio 154 | 401-751-5700 | George Gershwin | New Music And Songs | George Gershwin About George Gershwin In a career tragically cut short in mid-stride by a brain tumor, George Gershwin (1898-1937) proved himself to be not only one of the great songwriters of his extremely rich era, but also a gifted "serious" composer who bridged the worlds of classical and popular music. The latter is all the more striking, given that, of his contemporaries, Gershwin was the most influenced by such styles as jazz and blues. Gershwin's first major hit, interpolated into the show Sinbad in 1919, was "Swanee," sung by Al Jolson. Gershwin wrote both complete scores and songs for such variety shoes as George White's Scandals (whose annual editions thus were able to introduce such songs as "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" and "Somebody Loves Me").

After 1924, Gershwin worked primarily with his brother Ira as his lyricist. The two scored a series of Broadway hits in the '20s and early '30s, starting with Lady Be Good (1924), which included the song "Fascinatin' Rhythm." 1924 was also the year Gershwin composed his first classical piece, "Rhapsody in Blue," and he would continue to work in the classical field until his death. By the '30s, the Gershwins had turned to political topics and satire in response to the onset of the Depression, and their Of Thee I Sing became the first musical to win a Pulitzer Prize. In the mid '30s, Gershwin ambitiously worked to meld his show music and classical leanings in the creation of the folk opera Porgy and Bess, with lyrics by Ira and Dubose Heyward. The Gershwins had moved to Hollywood and were engaged in several movie projects at the time of George Gershwin's death.

~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi Hear more of Ira Gershwin - Gershwin Gershwin Ira Gershwin The Contemplative Craftsman Ira Gershwin, the first lyricist to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize — for OF THEE I SING in 1932 — was born in New York City on December 6, 1896. While attending the College of the City of New York, Ira began demonstrating his lifelong interest in light verse and contributed quatrains and squibs to newspaper columnists. In 1918, while working as the desk attendant in a Turkish bath, he tentatively began a collaboration with his brother George, and their “The Real American Folk Song (Is a Rag)” was heard in Nora Bayes’ LADIES FIRST. Not wanting to trade on the success of his already famous brother, Ira adopted the nom de plume of Arthur Francis, combining the names of his youngest brother Arthur and sister Frances. Under this pen name, Ira supplied lyrics for his first Broadway show, TWO LITTLE GIRLS IN BLUE (1921), with music by Vincent Youmans.

By 1924 Ira was ready to begin his successful and lifelong collaboration with George and dropped the pseudonym. The Gershwins created their first joint hit, LADY, BE GOOD!, for Fred and Adele Astaire and followed it with more than 20 scores for stage and screen, including OH, KAY! for Gertrude Lawrence; two versions of STRIKE UP THE BAND (1927 and 1930); Ethel Merman’s introduction to Broadway, GIRL CRAZY (1930); SHALL WE DANCE (1937), one of Hollywood’s stylish pairings of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers; and the triumphant folk opera, PORGY AND BESS, written with DuBose Heyward.

Before and after George’s death in 1937, Ira collaborated with such composers as Harold Arlen (A STAR IS BORN, 1954), Vernon Duke (ZIEGFELD FOLLIES 1936), Kurt Weill (LADY IN THE DARK, 1941), Jerome Kern (COVER GIRL, 1944), Harry Warren (THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY, 1949; the final Astaire/Rogers picture), Arthur Schwartz (PARK AVENUE, 1946), and Burton Lane (GIVE A GIRL A BREAK, 1953).

The Jeweler For his film achievements, Ira Gershwin was nominated three times for an Academy Award: for the songs “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” “Long Ago (and Far Away)” (his biggest song hit in any one year), and “The Man That Got Away.” In 1966 he received a Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Maryland, confirming the judgment of so many of his literary admirers — writers such as Dashiell Hammett, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, S. N. Behrman, P. G. Wodehouse, W. H. Auden, Ogden Nash, and Lorenz Hart, to name only a few — that his work was not only of the first rank, but that the Gershwin “standards” set new standards for the American musical theatre. Small wonder that their songs have been taken up by a younger generation delighted by the “new” Gershwin musicals, MY ONE AND ONLY (1983) and the 1992 Tony Award winner for best musical, CRAZY FOR YOU.

In the years after George’s death, Ira attended to the Gershwin legacy of songs, show and film scores, and concert works. Ira annotated all the materials that pertained to the careers of his brother and himself before donating them to the Library of Congress to become part of our national heritage. In 1985 the United States Congress recognized this legacy by awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to George and Ira, only the third time in our nation’s history that songwriters had been so honored. On August 17, 1983, Ira Gershwin died at the “Gershwin Plantation,” the Beverly Hills home that he shared with his wife Leonore, to whom he had dedicated his unique collection of lyrics, musings, observations, and anecdotes, the critically acclaimed LYRICS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS (1959, 1997). George & Ira

Question: What was the first name of the song-writing brother of George Gershwin?
Answer: IRA